The hard-working photographer ducks elbows, waiters, the police at taped off crime scenes, scales fire escapes to shoot above crowds or at fancy award ceremonies, kneels between tables and gets a shot while looking out for chairs being pushed back or dinner guests walking with plates and not noticing him on his knee. The hard-working photographer is out to get the basic shots that work for whoever’s hired them while also trying to take the fanciful trick shot that none of the other photographers in the room would get or even think about. This is Aaron Lindberg’s approach to photography. When he’s in the field, the only detail that is missing is the Indiana Jones cap and the Audio Slave soundtrack.

Aaron and I interviewed for our jobs at PlattForm Advertising on the same day in May 2005. Outside the HR offices, we sat together in leather chairs with billowed arms and backs – the kind prone to swallowing up bodies – and didn’t speak. I thought he might be 15 years old. I suppose because writers tend to notice random details, I remember he had on a silver watch and a short-sleeved dress shirt that was nearly the same color. He kept his legs folded and a hand over his chin with his forefinger extended over his lip. I decided, then, that he was a fresh college graduate in his early 20s and that at 30, I could not longer tell anyone’s age if they were younger than me by more than a year or two. They were kids and I was old.

He got the staff photography job. I got mine. And together, over the last four years, we’ve roomed together on eight or 10 business trips to Las Vegas and Washington, D.C. I’ve seen him work rooms stacked with 600-800 people and a half-dozen photographers. Rather than battling them for space, he works his way around to open places where he can land the most impressive photos from the group with out the hassle. (I’ve been the subject for many photo shoots with him and, with the exception of one or two instances, I always look like shit. This has nothing to do with his work, mind you. This has everything to do with his subject. The few shots I was pleased with were as good as anyone can make me look.)

Once, I believe the first time we roomed together, was at a convention in Las Vegas in 2006. We were staying in a posh room at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. One night (it was morning actually, about 4), Aaron trudged into the room tired from drinking and, in the slanted light from the hallway before the door closed, felt his way to his bed and dropped down for the night. I got up the next morning, took a shower, and he eventually climbed out from bed for a bathroom visit. While he was crossing the room, I noticed that his body was streaked all over with what appeared to be shit.

I said something like, “Dude, what happened to you? What is that?”

One thing about photographers – some tend to be a little high strung. Frantically, Aaron started searching for an answer. He checked his drawers. He checked himself. Where did the brown stuff come from? He asked me if I had anything to do with it. “I had NOTHING to do with. Believe me.”

After a few minutes, he found little chocolate wrappers that the help had left on his pillow the day before. He’d missed them in the night and tossed and turned on them for the few hours he managed to sleep.

But here’s the interesting part. He sat down with a Bellagio pen and Bellagio paper to write a note for housekeeping. He asked me to help him write it since words are not his gift. I thought this was funny because what was he going to say? “Dear Housekeeping, I did not shit my pants. Those are merely chocolate stains on the bed.” And what magic could I possible bring to that?

Aaron has his own company now – a hard-wood floor loft in the arts district downtown. He has his own work framed on the wall. He has a sitting area to visit with clients and the floor space to conduct open-window fashion shoots. He’s come along way. On the taxi rides and plane trips, on walks through casinos and the houses of government, I seemed to learn something in watching him: You’ll never be younger than you are now. And you have to be yourself. He doesn’t know he taught me this. You might have someone like this in your life. Someone that walks into your space, does nothing more than be himself, and you can’t help but take something away from the experience. But in most cases, we generally don’t divulge that to these people.

I am 34 years old now, in many ways starting my life over. I’m not afraid. I’m not even hopeful. I’m as young as I’m going to be (a few seconds older after writing that last sentence). When a waiter throws an elbow or a cop blows a whistle at you, you have to duck. You have to climb the fire escape faster. When the world leaves a chocolate on your pillow and something meant to be good gets smeared on the bed sheets, its best just to pull the sheets up and move on – as long as a piece of you cares enough to want to leave a note.

I’d called a week before and set a time to see her so that she could mark the place for a hem in the new suit pants I’d bought. She told me she operated a location on Roadridge Road, a few blocks from my home, but only on certain days and after certain hours. We agreed to a time to meet within the timeframe she offered, but when the day arrived I had to break the appointment. She was pleasant enough when I called to cancel and we left it open-ended – I could stop by on one of the days I planned to take off from work the next week. She was in the Roanridge store after five on Mondays and Wednesdays, but otherwise I’d have to travel across town to catch her during the day.

The following Monday, I dialed her number to confirm that we could meet at her Roanridge location and she told me that she’d closed that location four years ago. I wondered if I was talking to the same person. I knew I was, but I double-checked the number anyway. And then I wondered if I should trust her with my pants. I decided that I was still fortunate to find a tailor nearby, even if it was about 10 miles further than I planned to go, but it was worth sparing myself the hunt, so I agreed to see her.

I walked up to the shop door and looked through a broad window labeled with a McCain/Palin bumper sticker anyway. I felt like I was looking in on a pornography set from the 1980s. The room was well carpeted, the walls were covered in wood panelling, one corner was blocked off by drawn curtains which I figured be the dressing room, and the lighting was false and yellow – like poor quality stage lighting, and I pushed the door open ready to perform if need be.
Mary had told me her name on the phone and I saw her first thing. She was prettier than I expected, talking to the mailman about her age – maybe five years older than me. They were discussing a man who’d just left in a Hummer. He told them that he bought his truck from a man who’d purchased it in a charity event. It had supposedly been driven by Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The mailman says, “He said that Arnold Schwarzenneger drove it in The Sixth Sense, but Bruce Willis was in that, right? Schwarzenneger wasn’t in The Sixth Sense, was he?”

Undecided, they both turned to me.

“I don’t know,” I say, feeling their let down that the new person in the room can’t add anything to the conversation. In a few more exchanges, it was decided that the man must be a liar, though he dressed decently and drove a nice vehicle.

The mailman left and the door drew closed behind him.

“What can I do … are you the person who called earlier about pants?”

“Yeah, that was me.”

“Okay, you can try them on back there.”

She continues talking, her words flowed at a pace comparable to her sewing machine’s stitching.

“I made four appointments last Wednesday night and three people showed up,” she says.

“Is that right?”

The curtains were closed and her voice came again from the open room.

“Is there enough space in there for you?”

“Yeah, I have enough space.”

A stool was pushed in the corner and it was laden with clothes, some folded and some pant legs dangled down like aborted puppet limbs, all the life come out from them after the puppet draws his hand away. I put my shoes against the wall and tried to balance with stocking feet on thick carpet. In one corner, there was a thin wedge that the seamstress could peak through if she crossed the room at the right time and as I unbuckled my jeans and stepped out from them, I saw her flash past. Her voice seemed louder as she crossed the open spot.
“My boy is just beginning to walk and he falls into things,” she says.

“Is that right?” I asked flatly, not tracking with the conversation or her comment.

A boy came toddling out from a backroom. I could hear him breathing and taking hollow steps that wouln’tt make impressions on the carpet. I slipped on the slacks. My feet stepped on the too-long material that I’d come to have taken up, and then a muted, warm poop smell hit me. The smell was filtered through a fresh diaper, but there was no question that it was stale poop.

Mary, the seamstress, was behind the counter and sewing, a good 15 feet away from the boy, and likely had no idea he’d filled his pants during his nap. I decided to pretend not to notice.

I walked out and faced the counter, and she came from behind itm talking with a push pin shoved in her mouth.

“Are you ready?”

She folded down to her knees by me and asked me to turn around. I felt her take up the material and pin it in place.

“Okay,” she says.

“Is that it?”

“Yeah, I only have to do one leg.” I could feel the cold metal pinning through the cloth as the sexual tension dissapates.

“You can slip those off and give them to me. I’ll fill out the ticket for you.”

I went back and took them off, replaced them with blue jeans and in mid-pants change, her boy came toddling through the curtain, stumbled and fell backward against the stool. He laid there for a few seconds, stared at me, and cried.

“Is he okay?” she asked.

“He’s okay, I think.”

Mary’s boy had seen a stranger standing in the nude, and it was probably not his first time. I hope that he comes to realize his mother was doing a favor for all the men who saw her, but it had nothing to due with rampant nudity or anything physical. I doubt what he sees, though, is worse than some children’s upbrinings and the tricks that their mothers pull in the bedrooms next to them.

I took my pants to the counter and she filled out receipt for me, a pink draft that I stuffed into a pocket.

“Thank you,” I tell her, glad for the story.

In fairytales, the seamstress is sometimes the most unsightly person in the kingdom. Mary was more princess than seamstress, and yet the operation she ran carried an ere of obscenity that could only be found beneath a passive furnace store on a Monday afternoon. The most dangerous places in the world are the quaint and unexpected ones.